Thanksgiving with Abraham Lincoln

Did you know Abraham Lincoln instituted Thanksgiving as a national holiday? In the middle of the civil war, no less! During the worst time of national crisis the country had ever seen up to that point. That blows my mind. You could argue that an actual shooting civil war is the worst national crisis we've experienced ever. (Although both world wars, abortion, and same-sex marriage are close seconds.)

In the middle of national crisis, President Lincoln called for nation-wide Thanksgiving to God. Quite the prophetic dude. Really smart, too. We could learn from him.

We certainly are in the middle of national crisis now, on several fronts, with enemies within and without trying to take down America and what we stand for, with varying degrees of success. What better time to dedicate ourselves to giving thanks to the Lord, trusting him in advance to bring the national repentance we need to save this great country.

Thanksgiving with King David

King David (presumably) says it much better than I ever could. So I think before Thanksgiving I'll just leave you with his words from Psalm 100 (NIV):

    Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

    Worship the Lord with gladness;

    Come before him with joyful songs.

    Know that the Lord is God.

    It is he who made us, and we are his.

    We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

    Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise;

    Give thanks to him and praise his name.

    For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

    His faithfulness continues through all generations.

The Seed of the Church

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” Tertullian, an early church father, in 197 AD. ISIS doesn't realize it, but they are planting a really strong future Christian church on the very ground where they are now spilling innocent blood.

So we need have no fear accepting refugees. If we offer these strangers mercy and aid, and they repay our kindness by killing us and doing evil to us, then they are only making Islam fall faster.

Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Terrorist

Normally I don't get political on this blog. But this is a Christian, Kingdom-of-God issue, not a political one. For the record, I consider myself a Reagan-conservative, lest any of my fellow conservatives accuse me of being a liberal. Not that that matters.

In the wake of the horribly deplorable terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday, several US state governors have closed their states to Syrian refugees. After all, so the argument goes, at least one of the terrorists came into Europe with the refugees.

The problem is a lot of other people came with the refugees, too; namely, refugees. Families. Children. Desperate people rejecting ISIS' caliphate and fleeing from it with the clothes on their backs. How many hundreds or thousands of innocents are we willing to leave out in the cold to thwart one terrorist?

My answer is 0. Zero. Zip. Nada. I think this is a Kingdom-of-God issue. Very black 'n' white, according to Matthew 25:31-46, the parable of the sheep and the goats. If we have the means to do so, we have to help those in need, regardless of the risk. Jesus would. We must.

We don't have to be stupid about it. We can use facial recognition software and/or other screening technology to weed out the terrorists. We can monitor their movements, activities, and communications once they're in-country until we've convinced ourselves they're vetted. Yes, no process or technology is perfect; we will miss some. But we will have helped so many more.

At the end of the day, God will not judge us based on how many terrorists we caught, but on how many people we sacrificed to help. He will judge the terrorists for their actions, and he will judge us for ours. In the face of so much evil, let's be found doing good.

To Fear or Love, That Is the Question

At the end of the day, there are only two motivations for all actions in the human experience. Only two. Fear or Faith. That's it. It's that simple.

In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were like, “This fruit will make us wise? A wisdom God wasn't going to give us? He's been holding out on us!” They were afraid they were missing something. They didn't have faith anymore.

Then, after the ate the fruit, they were really living in fear. “Oh no, I'm naked! I've got to cover up!” And we've been living to cover our shame ever since. Out of fear of being exposed.

Fear says, “I have to take care of myself before I help you, because otherwise I won't have enough.” Fear of failure. Fear of being known. Fear of being alone. Fear of being rejected. Fear of not being loved.

Faith says, “I can afford to sacrifice this for you, because I know God will make it up to me.” Faith God will provide even though we can't see it. Faith it will be ok even though we don't see how or when. Faith through uncertainty. Faith we are loved.

All negative, sinful actions are motivated, ultimately, by fear. So when someone's being a hurtful jerk, ask the Holy Spirit to show you what they're afraid of. And what you can do to serve them, bless them and disarm their fear.

When you realize this, you treat people differently and it works. Tell me in the comments your how it works for you.

The Pig I Have

One morning a rural pastor was out visiting folks in his congregation and had this conversation with a poor farmer.

     Pastor: “Farmer Brown, if you had two horses, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

     Farmer: “Absolutely, Pastor, you know that I would.”

     Pastor: “If you had two cows, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

     Farmer: “Without thinking twice about it, in a heartbeat, Pastor.”

     Pastor: “If you had two pigs, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

     Farmer: “Well, now, Pastor, that's not fair. You know I have two pigs.”

(Kudos to Pastor David Sauer for this great story.)

We're happy to give God what we don't have. “Lord, if you let me hit the lottery, I'll give you a million dollars, pay off the church's property, and then I'll start tithing. And since I won't have to work, I'll spend 4 hours a day praying and worshipping, reading my Bible, and communing with you.”

But God doesn't want the horse or the cow we don't have. He wants the pig we do have. He knows our schedule. He doesn't want the million dollars or the 4 hours a day we don't have. Or even the hour a day we don't have. He wants the 10 minutes a day, even the 5 minutes a day, that we do have.

Let's start there. Let's start daily. With something. No guilt, we're not checking a box here. Just giving him what we do have.

That's how you build intimacy with the Lord. Spend that daily time, just you and him, no matter how small. Faithfully. As you're faithful, you'll be amazed and how faithful he will be in giving you more time. Watch it grow. Tell me in the comments what happens.

Parental Inversion

Parental inversion is when the child has to be strong for the adult. It's when the adult draws emotional strength from the child. It's rampant in our society because we adults don't know how to be adults. Children, and I include teen-agers where it is especially prevalent, don't know any better – when their parent is hurting, of course they want to be strong for them. But they aren't equipped to be. They aren't supposed to be.

We adults are supposed to be strong for our children. We adults are supposed to show by example the Christian life of long-suffering and self-sacrifice, flowing out of beautiful and rich intimacy with the Lord. When we frequently receive that abundance of his presence directly from him, we can sacrifice to ourselves because we're overflowing with Jesus. We never don't have enough.

But instead, often we don't spend enough time with him (if any) to get that overflow. So we live from crisis to crisis, in fear that we won't have enough. And we pull our children into adult responsibilities and adult concerns that they aren't emotionally equipped to deal with. It breaks the heart of God when children can't be children.

But there's hope for parental inversion. If this is you, get counseling, get help. You cannot do this alone. For your children's sake, if not for your own.

We get out of parental inversion by coming to the place where Jesus is a real person we commune with, and he gives us the emotional support we need, instead of drawing it from our kids. We get out of parental inversion by sacrificing our safety in the crisis. By risking not having enough. By trusting he'll give us enough.

We know he's enough because we've lived it. We put our trust in him when it was all on the line, and he came through. Maybe not how we wanted, but he came through how he wanted and we're still standing. So we can sacrifices ourselves in whatever crisis we face, for the sake of our kids. That's the example they need to see.